Gnomon - North Hollywood, pg2
Construction
Construction started in August of 2023 and completed in July of 2024. Project Manager Stephen Moss supervised Dempsey Construction, who was the primary contractor. While there were unforeseen delays, as to be expected, they ultimately did exceptional work and were very cool to work with. They were also super patient with me as I pretended to be an interior designer and architect for a couple years.
The build began by framing walls with aluminum studs, then electrical, HVAC, drywall, paint, grinding and staining floors, light fixtures, etc. So many big, and little, things have to happen to take a raw space and convert it to a final state, executed by various skilled teams. Given that it has now been a year since the new campus opened, and how few hiccups there have been, is a testament to the quality of their work.
We also installed a 100% brand new network infrastructure at Noho under the supervision of our CTO Eric Miller, with a new server, switches and a 10G fiber backbone throughout the facility. All projectors and screens for labs and the stage are also brand new and 4k.
Virtually all prints of student work around the new campus were also replaced with new work as, due to the higher ceilings, we needed bigger prints. I chose all the prints, put them in Maya to figure out sizes, and coordinated printing with our local vendor who luckily was able to print, deliver and hang. I also coordinated new custom wallpapers for three areas with Riot Printing using student work and an amazing huge mural by Cameron Davis for the student store.
Campus Photos
The new campus officially opened on July 15th for the 2024 Summer Term, after a five week ‘break’. That was a crazy time, when we packed up and moved 35,000 sqft of stuff with the help of an exceptional moving company, CPM, under the supervision of our Ops Director Chris Strompolos. With 25 years of custom steel furniture, much of which needed to be cut and rewelded, artwork, sculptures, arcade games, electrical work, etc… this was no small endeavor.
I must thank Gentle Giant Studios and Sideshow Collectibles for their generous donations of lifesize statues for the new campus. Gnomon already had an awesome Stormtrooper that JJ Abrams gave us when The Force Awakens came out, and a lifesize Neytiri (Avatar) from Gentle Giant, but for the new campus I reached out to Gentle Giant and Sideshow to see if they may have anything to display. We ended up with two super cool life-size Death Troopers from Gentle Giant (Rogue One) and a life-size Iron Man, Witch King and Sylvanas Windrunner from Sideshow.
Below are photos from the first couple terms at the new campus as it came to life, including a few cool events and visitors.
Photography by Substance Media and @lizricephotography
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Closing Thoughts…
While a ton of work, moving Gnomon was a once in a lifetime experience for me. As someone who had designed Gnomon’s old campus, but gradually over 25 years, this was a daunting task. Doing something this big all at once was exciting and stressful but, ultimately, super rewarding. Seeing my renders become real was… surreal. While in hindsight the experience was a blur of work, I am quite proud of the end result and happy that our staff, students and teachers have responded so positively to the move. We will always miss Television Center, our original home… a 100 year old studio lot that was full of character and history. But change is the way of things, and this one was necessary to support the needs of our community. I think it turned out pretty cool.